‘Mules’ roped into fraud schemes a growing concern
WASHINGTON — The email caught the executive at a small company by surprise one morning in 2016. The company’s owner, or so he thought, was requesting a money transfer to pay for supplies from a new vendor.
It wasn’t until that night when the executive, hours after the money had been transferred and still puzzled by the out-of-theblue demand, texted the owner to make sure he’d heard the request correctly.
The befuddled reply was disheartening: “I just saw your message about a wire transfer today. What is that about?”
It was all part of a fraud scam that targeted companies, schools and nonprofits in Connecticut and elsewhere in the United States and that resulted this month in a 45-month prison sentence for one of the culprits. The case is part of a seemingly endless cycle of money laundering schemes that law enforcement officials say they’re scrambling to slow through a combination of prosecution and public awareness.
Beyond the run-of-themill plots, officials say, is a particularly concerning trend involving “money mules” — people who, unwittingly or not, use their own bank accounts to move money for criminals for purposes they think are legitimate or even noble.
The “mule” concept has attracted renewed attention with this month’s release of Clint Eastwood’s “The Mule,” a real-life tale of an elderly horticulturist who smuggled cocaine for a Mexican cartel. But the modern-day mules of most concern to the FBI are people who get themselves entangled in complicated, international money laundering schemes that cause huge economic losses and show no signs of stopping.
“They trial and error this stuff and they see what works and they see what doesn’t,” FBI supervisory special agent James Abbott said in an interview. “It’s a much higher success rate when you have a lot of money using somebody else’s account going through there instead of trying to cross the border with a physical transportation of cash.”
The FBI and international law enforcement agencies have stepped up efforts against the fraud and say they’re building bigger cases than before. Europol said this month it had identified 1,504 money mules, arresting 168, in a continent-wide bust. The FBI in June announced the arrests of 74 people, including 29 in Nigeria, for schemes targeting businesses and the elderly, and has launched a publicity campaign called “Don’t Be a Mule.”
The money mule cases are an offshoot of more generic frauds encountered by the FBI, including schemes that dupe people into thinking they’ve won the lottery and can claim their prizes by wiring an advance payment, or that trick the unsuspecting into believing a relative has been arrested and needs urgent bail money or that a paramour they’ve met online requires cash.
In cases like the Connecticut one, fraudsters assume identities of executives and scam employees into wiring cash.